Devils and Dust

Chapter three

Suddenly everything stops
as the swift blood declines
to a sluggish ooze amid a swamp.

The mind and the senses drift
upon a casual wind
blowing petals of a shattered rose.

The body, God knows why, creeps
along, some crazy creature
half an insect, half a tumbleweed.

Only the heart lies awake
a naked nerve, an eyeball
staring from the socket of the darkness. -Slump by Vassar Miller


Ginny huddled in the corner of the room, her back to the wall, watching the other women in the room. Well, truth be told, most were no more women than she. They were girls, two dozen at least. Most were sitting together in groups talking quietly, but some were huddled in corners as she was, their eyes radiating fear. But the ones that truly made her skin crawl, were those that sat unmoving, their eyes blank.

She vowed that she would not allow herself to become like them. She might be obedient, but she would never be broken.

But even as she thought it she feared she was deluding herself. She didn’t know what they had suffered or what she was going to have to endure. Justin had only been gone for a few minutes but before he’d left he’d told her not to get comfortable, that he would be back for her.

She could barely bring herself to think about what he would do with her when he returned, but she had to. She had to prepare herself for what was to come if she was going to survive it. She wasn’t ignorant of what went on in prison camps. As much as her family had tried to shield her she’d heard the stories. She’d heard the women who had been rescued crying in the hospital wing. She knew what was likely to be done to her.

She was still a virgin. She had decided that she wanted to save herself for someone special. She had wanted her first time to be something that she could cherish and remember forever. But she realized that dream was never going to become a reality. It would surely be something she would remember forever, but it would be a painful memory.

She found that excepting the reality of her situation took away some of the fear. They might be able to use her body, but they would never be able to touch what mattered. There were worse things after all. They could have killed her right away, then she would have never had the chance to do anything again. As long as she was alive, there was hope.

She thought she’d prepared herself. Thought her cold logic had evaporated her fear. But when Justin came striding into the room, simmering with anger, and ordered her to come with him, the fear came back stronger than before. The idea of being raped and the reality that it was about to happen were two very different things.

When she continued to sit there, paralyzed with fear, he narrowed his eyes and grabbed her roughly by the arm, hauling her up against him.

“I gave you an order. I thought we covered what would happen if you disobeyed orders. Maybe I need to refresh your memory,” he sneered as he brought his wand out of his pocket.

But her fear clouded mind couldn’t process his words. All she could think was that he was touching her. She didn’t want him to touch her.

“Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me,” she whispered over and over.

His eyes narrowed, and he said with an edge to his voice, “Don’t worry, I won’t touch you. I’m not allowed.”

He pushed her away from him and pointed his wand at her. “But I am allowed to teach you to obey. Crucio.”

She fell to the ground her eyelids clenching shut and her whole body vibrating from the pain of the curse. He made no move to cancel it and as the pain became too much for her to bear she fell into the sweet relief of unconsciousness.


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When she woke, it was to find herself lying on a bed, a pillow supporting her head. For a moment she thought she was back at home in her bed, and it had all been some horrible nightmare, but the sound of a familiar voice destroyed that illusion.

“Well. I see that you’re finally awake. I had begun to fear that young Justin had been overly exuberant. Not to worry, he has been punished for his rashness. After all, we can’t have you dying. I have great plans for you Ms. Weasley.”

She sat up slowly, turning herself so that she could look at him. It had been years since she’d seen him. Years since she’d first heard his voice, cold and sneering in Flourish and Blotts. But she had never forgotten him. She’d never forgotten the man that had stolen her childhood. The man who had slipped Tom’s diary into her cauldron. The diary that had imbrued her with it’s evil and almost destroyed her.

He had taken one form of her innocence from her when she was eleven years old and as she looked at him from the lushly padded bed, she had no doubt that he was about to take another.


She pulled the blanket up to her chin, as if it would offer some protection.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, her hands shaking as they gripped the blanket. “Please don’t touch me.”

Lucius stood and walked to the side of the bed slowly. When he reached it’s edge, he bent down over her taking her chin into his hand and she flinched.

“You poor stupid girl,” he whispered, his breath warm on her face. “I am going to do much more than that. When I’m done with you there will be no part of your body or mind that I have not touched and twisted and made my own. Make no mistake, you will be mine as you were once the Dark Lord’s. And you will come to like my presence, to need it, to cherish it as you once did his. You are mine.”

As he torn the blanket from her, and soon after her clothes, she screamed for help. But no one came to save her this time, and she stopped screaming long before it was over.


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Dear father, I’ve changed my mind and now find the actions I called immoral and depraved perfectly acceptable. I’ve decided to come visit, to view in person said depraved activities, so if you would be so kind as to send me the well guarded secret location of your camp that would be just peachy. Sincerely, Draco Malfoy.


Draco chuckled as he tossed the sheet into the fire, but quickly sobered.

He really had no idea what to write. It was all well and good to decide to go rescue the Weasley girl, but he hadn’t really thought about what he could say to convince his father he had decided to change sides. And he had to convince him. He knew that his father would kill him if he thought he was working for the Order, and he would be no good to anyone if he were dead. But his father was, for all his faults, a smart man, and his life depended on outsmarting him.

But Draco did have an advantage. He knew his father far better than his father knew him.

His father had never seen him as anything other than a spoiled and spineless brat. It had been an exhilarating experience to shock his father with his defiance. Lucius had never expected that from him. He probably still couldn’t quite believe it.

He was probably still expecting Draco to come crawling back to him, begging for the return of the wealthy life he had become accustomed to. Draco smiled. Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

He picked up his quill and began to write.


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“Well, how very interesting. It seems that Draco has changed his mind. I knew he’d break, but honestly I didn’t think he’d last this long. I figured after his first night of sleeping on sheets with less than a thousand thread count he’d come crawling back.”

Lucius tapped the paper to his chin, his eyes narrowing. “Still I could be wrong. Maybe it’s a trick. Draco has always been an accomplished liar. What do you think, my lovely pet?”

Ginny sat in the bed, the sheets pooled at her waist, exposing her naked chest. After the first few times she’d stopped immediately covering herself. She had been punished each time she did, and after all it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. And touched, and bruised.

She worked very hard to keep herself from shuddering. She had come to be very adept at controlling her reactions. He disliked it when she showed her disgust of him.

“I don’t know....master.” She hesitated a bit at the title. She’d refused to say it for the first couple of days. But she’d found that no matter how distasteful and lowering it made her feel to say it, she preferred it to the alternative. She’d always thought she had a high pain threshold, but her first experience with Crucio had cured her of that ridiculous notion.

“You don’t know?” The musing tone of his voice faded and was replaced by a tone she knew very well. It was the voice he used when he was displeased with her. And when he was displeased with her, very unpleasant things followed. “Surely you can give a better answer than that? If I’d wanted such an uninspired and lazy answer, I’d have directed my question to the wall.”

She answered hurriedly, desperate to pacify him before he became truly angry. “From what I knew of him in school, I’d say he was sincere. He was always a cold bastard. Frankly, I never believed that he had truly changed sides.” The answer spilled out of her. It was the truth and she’d found that she couldn’t stop herself from telling him the truth.

She’s thought at first that it was a spell, but she’d finally realized that it was nothing so sinister. No, the sad truth was that it was fear that made her unable to lie to him. He had total control of her life and she had no doubt that if he found out she had lied to him, he could kill her without a second thought. And if there was one thing she was determined to do it was to live.

She would survive this and someday she would be free and this would all just be a distant and painful memory.

She was startled by his laugh. Whenever she thought of her eventual freedom she slipped away from herself. But never for long. He was always there to bring her back to the cold harsh reality of her life.

“A cold bastard, hmm? I take it by that you mean that we are all cold bastards that serve the dark lord. Has your stay with us been so unpleasant? I’ve made every effort to be as hospitable as possible.”

He rose from the chair and walked slowly toward the bed. “Perhaps I’m not paying you enough attention,” he said softly as he ran his finger down her chest, stopping at her nipple.

She wanted more than anything to flinch back. To escape even for a moment from his touch. But she knew there was no escaping him. And it would go worse for her if she resisted. So she didn’t. She just sat there unmoving, staring at him with emotionless eyes.

His eyes narrowed as he saw the blankness shutter her eyes. He liked to see emotion in the eyes of his victims. He liked to see the pain that he caused reflected back at him. He reveled in it. He pinched her nipple roughly between his fingers and smiled when he saw pain drive away the blankness in her eyes.


He tossed the letter from Draco to the floor, bringing both hands down to hold her firmly to the bed. She caught the hungry look in his eyes before his head descended past her view; and as she felt his mouth close roughly around her nipple, she slipped away from it all. She submersed herself in happy memories. Her first time riding a broom. The train ride to Hogwarts and her first view of the magnificent castle.

It helped a little, to think of happier times, but it did not block out what was happening completely. She could still feel the pain as he entered her body in one rough thrust. She could still dimly hear the horrible things he whispered in her ear. But by concentrating as much as she was able to on other things she was able to distance herself somewhat from what was happening.

The experience was nowhere near as startlingly sharp as it had been that first time. Each time it happened the thin fog in her mind that dampened her senses, thickened. She hoped that one day it would be so thick that she could block the whole experience altogether. She hoped for that day as much as she feared it. Each time the fog thickened and she forced herself away from reality, it became harder and harder to come back. And when she did her mind and her emotions seemed damaged just a little more.

She feared that one day she would not be able to return from the fog. That she would be trapped forever behind it and end up as blank eyed and broken as the girls she’d seen and feared the first day she’d arrived.


But she was coming to care less and less about that possibility. She was becoming to care less and less about a lot of things. And as his hands gripped her thighs hard enough to bruise, she didn’t even feel it.

Her eyes had gone blank and a small smile played about her lips as she relived her first ride across the lake to Hogwarts, and wrapped herself in the warm feeling of complete safety that had overcome her when she’d walked through the ornately carved stone doors. And it was a long time after Lucius had pulled out of her, spent, and left the tent, that she returned to reality.